Spate of bike shop break-ins suggestive of violent gang at work

Cambridgeshire's C6 Bikes is latest bike shop to be hit; owners damn thieves and those who buy from them

Cambridgeshire's C6 Bikes was broken into on Monday evening, with much of the shop damaged and with thieves stealing £20,000-worth of stock. A number of other recent break-ins at bike shops around the country suggest there could be a gang at work, targeting high-end cycle stores.

C6 is owned by Stephen Heathcock and Jack Waller, and is sited on an industrial estate close to the A10 north of Cambridge.

The pair wrote: "At 23:40 on the 21/8 our dreams got shattered by the voice on the phone, 'your alarm has been triggered and the Police have been called'. We arrived at our shop that we have poured blood, sweat and tears into to find it demolished, with significant damage to the fabric of the building, and 20k of stock gone."

The owners go on to criticise the thieves who have "caused so much stress to us and our families," adding "we won't be enjoying the bank holiday with the family, and you just made it even harder to survive in this difficult climate."

There's also criticism for those who buy stolen bikes, often a "cheap cash purchase in that unknown lay-by."

As reported earlier this month there have been a number of strikingly similar raids on other bike shops in the past six weeks. The JE James store in Rotherham was raided in late July, with damage done to the shopfront and three Orange MTBs stolen. J C Cook Cycles of Grimsby was targeted in August, and more recently £70,000-worth of bikes were stolen in a raid at Corley Cycles of Milton Keynes.